I FLEETWOOD LDOY COMPETITION By Thomas Wood
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Fleetwood Take it Easy
AFTER watching some of the big-entry .dri. rounds where 100 and more aspiring Lorry Drivers of the Year chase elusive success along a rushing river of organization, a day with Fleetwood's 42 entries (down from 51 last year) has the bucolic charm of a silvan stream.
Such was Sunday's round at that centre; the efficient organizers and marshals had so much time in hand with their 9 a.m. start that I wondered how they would fill it. In the event the competition ran consistently and entrancingly late until the prize-giving took place about an hour behind schedule, at 5 p.m.
This is recorded as fact, and in no way as a criticism, because nobody-competitor, official or member of the public-was in the least put out; not even the Mayor of Fleetwood who had to delay tea with some old folk for the prize-giving.
So let nobody think Fleetwood was badly run because it averaged only five vehicles an hour-they just chose to go at that speed as far as I could see, and did so with utter good humour and efficiency. They even chose to have three local stewards when national regulations call for two: not that it mattered-no competitor was so churlish as to protest on such a sunny day.
How did they fare, those 42 competitors? Well, D. Rickman of Fleetwood Corporation (a finalist in 1964, 1965, and 1966) is at Bramcote again this year in Class E(1). Several other 1966 class winners were defending their titles.
Special mention for W. Pennington of SPD Ltd., who headed Class D. A lastminute substitute, and driving an unfamiliar vehicle, he held off the strong challenge of A. W. Forrester of Express Dairy Co. who not only was a defending 1966 class champion but was also his company's reigning champion driver.